A designer’s garden for a country’s 250th birthday

Designer Frederick Anderson welcomed his audience as “descendants of immigrants” in his show note for The Garden Party, a 50-piece collection timed to the United States’ 250th birthday. He dedicated it to his father, who died of injuries from military service. The show opened with Grammy-winning artist Allison Russell performing “Eve Was Black”, a song confronting the racism Black Americans had to overcome to be free.

The collection told the Garden of Eden story in fabric. Pastel and floral silhouettes gave way to a bright red jumpsuit whose satin bodice stood for restraint, which Anderson called the most intense piece, a nod to the strapping of slavery. Raffia fringe coats and boubou sleeves referenced West African dress, and a pink-red wash of eye makeup reworked Indigenous American war paint. The show closed in white and reintroduced the jumpsuit to say the garden is also about renewal.